Meet Yu Lian de Bakker, award winning General Counsel and Senior Vice President at PVH Europe (Tommy Hilfiger & Calvin Klein). After nine years at the Netherlands’ top firm (including three years in London), she became head of legal of FMCG giant Makro. Ten years later, in 2015, it was time for another change and she accepted an offer to head up the Legal team of global brand Tommy Hilfiger at its headquarters in Amsterdam. We interviewed her back in March 2022.
1. Imagine you could take classes from anyone who has ever lived. What would you learn, and who would be your teacher?
I’d like to learn from elderly who are wise and have a special life story, for example Lilian Gonçalves-Ho Kang You. I’m in the jury for the Gouden Zandloper and she is too. Lilian is a Surinamese and Dutch human rights activist and has held various positions within the human rights field, including president of the Dutch section of Amnesty International and president and member of Amnesty’s International Executive Committee. She’s incredibly nice, very interested in others and everything she’s done; wow. It makes me feel small. Those are the kind of people that really inspire me. Others that come to mind are Ruth Bader Ginsberg & Madeleine Albright. On the other hand, very young people who have incredible drive and have already found their purpose and are really forging their own path can also be incredibly inspiring. I think the common denominator of people I’d like to learn from are those who have walked or walk the untrodden path, filling their backpack with different types of experiences not based on what they think they “should” be doing but based on a type of intrinsic curiosity and drive. People that really forge their own path.
2. You’re about to join a career panel with an audience of about 75-100 professionals aged between 25 - 35. How would you be introduced?
A scriptwriter wrote something for an event I attended a while back. Back then, I was introduced as an award winning lawyer [editor’s note: Yu Lian won a General Counsel of the year 2019-2020 award!] and the General Counsel of PVH Europe. What I think is more interesting is that my profile & background is quite broad, I’m a pretty versatile general counsel. I think I’ve mastered the art of practicing law in my own way, and have been able to put Legal on the map and build a team at a company where it wasn’t really top of mind when I joined all those years ago. Changing that mindset and approach meant that we had to stand out a little & dare to create room for our team, but I don’t mind a bit of a challenge!
3. What does your typical work week and/or month look like? How and on what do you spend your time working, and with who?
It’s very dynamic. I’d say about half of my time is spent on the team, from 1:1s, sub team meetings and catch-ups on bigger projects or cases (during which I’m kept up to date & where we discuss & decide strategy & I review and give input on drafts). A smaller part is spent on the future: networking, staying up to date with everything that’s relevant to our field and our industry and improving the way we operate (Legal Operations). A bit less than half is spent on stakeholder management. I speak to executive vice presidents and executive management team members, my peers and the general counsel in the US regularly about everything they have going on, problems they encounter and how legal can support. I translate that back to the teams. I speak to the GC in the US weekly and our CFO on a bi-weekly basis.
On a slightly different note: we recently started “Meeting Free Fridays” where you’re not supposed to schedule regular meetings and so far it’s been great. By minimising time spent in meetings on Fridays (I do have urgent or one off meetings on Fridays sometimes) you can get so much done before the weekend, it’s very productive.
4. What parts or aspects of your job are most rewarding & fulfilling and what do you consider the least rewarding or challenging?
There’s a lot but most rewarding is getting things done and across the line, making impact & seeing people in the team really shine and having Legal be taken seriously by top management. When someone in the team does very well, it makes me happy & proud. What’s less rewarding are things like the bureaucratic processes and politics in large corporations, sometimes with a lot of time passing before intra group projects are done and dusted. What I also really appreciate is the fact that within a company like ours you work with people from all walks of life, different types of people with different types of backgrounds, who approach and look at life in different ways. This kind of environment helps shape you into a more all-round and well-rounded person.
5. What’s it like to work in the world of fashion?
I think the word that best describes it is speed. Things go very quickly, you need to be very practical. The world of fashion; well, it took me a while to figure out all the different areas in fashion that legal is involved in. Before I joined, I asked myself whether I really wanted to join a fashion brand and whether it would “make the world a better place”. I’ve come to realize that the world of fashion can be quite magical. People who wear our clothes truly feel better about themselves & feel more confident. That’s not something I really expected to see before I joined. Tommy Hilfiger is a truly global brand and I think you can say that the world of Tommy is a world in and of itself. Our HQ is in Amsterdam, and it’s incredible to be so close to the beating heart of the brand, which is then sold and worn all over the world.
6. What motivated you to make your career change from private practice to in-house and then the switch from Makro to PVH?
After nine years, I had gained a lot of experience and decided it was time for something new. I’d spent three years in London and when I returned to Amsterdam had my first daughter. Combining all that with M&A was not it for me. Given I wasn’t going to become a partner, I had to figure out what I wanted to do. In a way, if you’ve only worked in private practice, you’re a bit of a one trick pony. I applied to 2 different jobs, one was a role in which I would become responsible for organising the Children’s Book Week for the Dutch Book Association (CPNB). The other was a Head of Legal role at Makro. I was in the last phase of the interview process with only 1 other candidate remaining when I found out I would have to take a very large pay cut organising the Book Week. Pay isn’t everything, but it is important. I decided to take the job at Makro and looking back, that was definitely also jumping into the deep end. There was nothing support wise. At De Brauw, you had support, people to help make sure you can do the best work you do. At Makro, I was pretty much back in the trenches without any support. After joining, I had to in a way reinvent myself in my new role and learn to practice law in a very different way. I loved the atmosphere, which was super down to earth. I look back on my time there very fondly. After ten years at Makro, I was approached by a headhunter for roles at two different companies. The headhunter selected 8 candidates for the role of GC at PVH Europe and PVH selected me to be interviewed. The rest is history!
7. How were you able to make the transition to an in-house role? What do you consider good tips for others looking to make a similar move?
It’s important to develop a unique profile and a network amongst headhunters, they need to know you, what your interests are and where you’d be a good fit. To a headhunter, sometimes Big Law / Zuidas corporate lawyers can be a dime a dozen. Everyone has been trained at the top firms, and all of these people are looking for the “coolest” jobs on a managerial level where they have their own team. To manage expectations: try to get that out of your head. In a way, you’ll need to start somewhere at the bottom again. I was lucky because I’d gained almost ten years of experience in private practice, so immediately transitioned to a Head of Legal role. Often, after about 4 - 5 years you make the transition to legal counsel and then you continue growing from there. To make the transition easier and help you get the job you want, create your “own” profile showing - where possible - an intrinsic motivation to make the transition, and be sure to make it evident you understand how business really works. Secondments to clients when you’re still working in private practice are a great way to demonstrate that, and also a great way for you to figure out whether a role like that could be a match. There’s a lot of people who want to make the transition and it’s not always easy to get rid of the “BigLaw lawyer” stamp. Also, remember that it takes some time to become a good in-house lawyer.
8. As GC, when engaging external law firms, what do you look for? To the extent you can summarize it, what way of working, skills, proposition etc. sets the “crème de la crème” apart from the rest?
Be proactive and pragmatic. When your client sends you some documents, spend some time scanning through them, give super practical to the point advice over the phone. Just help your client in an efficient way. I’m not a fan of lengthy or complicated memos or emails. What also sets firms apart is when they truly present themselves as a partner to their clients, for example when they’re willing to give training to client teams, are proactive in keeping their clients up to date on legal developments (which almost every firm does nowadays) & host masterclasses. In giving training and masterclasses, what sets the best apart from the rest is the ability to make that practical translation to their clients’ companies. Something that can bother me (and other GCs) is when we get the feeling lawyers bill hours extremely generously given the task at hand. Being reasonable with billing can actually make the difference and set you apart. So can things like alternative fee proposals, which can make for a more pleasant way to conclude a project.
9. How does your experience as a corporate lawyer contribute to your role today? What did you still have to learn & what - if anything - did you actually have to “unlearn”?
Corporate law is still my “natural” habitat, and I’m more experienced in corporate law than in other fields like data, intellectual property & employment law. As GC, however, the most important thing is to be able to ask relevant & critical questions, to be able to challenge experts in fields other than your own and through asking those questions contributing to a better outcome. Being able and actually daring to ask questions and to continue asking questions is definitely something I was well trained to do in private practice.
What I had to unlearn is the natural tendency to want to mitigate every possible risk. You need to develop an understanding of the risk profile of the company you work for and give your advice on the basis of that risk profile
. This means you’re not going to flag every single potential risk or try to mitigate every single potential risk. For major risks, obviously you need to be the one to raise the alarm and be able to veto a certain course of action.
As GC of a large legal team of about 25 legal counsels, the skills you need are managing people & keeping everything running smoothly. There’s a lot to doing that, from actual people management to headcount discussions to managing the allocation and spending of the budget. In private practice, you work in teams and also train more junior associates working on projects with you, but I’d still say you’re more focused on yourself. Since transitioning in-house, talent development is a super important part of my job. I have lots of specialists in my team, people who are much more experienced in their fields of law than I am. My success depends on their success, and I want to help them perform their best and give them opportunities to “shine” and do challenging work.
10. What do you hope the next 10 years will look like for you, in an ideal scenario?
I could continue working in a role like this for the next 10 years, but I’d like to mix it up with other types of work as well. My current thinking is serving on a supervisory or advisory board or volunteer work of sorts. I’d like to share and pass on my knowledge and experience, using it to give back. My plans are still a little vague and I need to think about it more. As to my role as GC, I believe it’s the type of job you can continue doing for quite some time (and with grey hair!), maybe unlike certain other fields where you often have to “stay young”.
11. If you hadn’t become a lawyer, what would you have become?
Designer. I love drawing and when I was young always wanted to either pursue drawing or pursue something to do with language. I ended up choosing language. In another life, I’d become a designer. I’d need to figure out what exactly, but it would probably be related to houses and/or objects.
12. What do you consider some of the best pieces of advice you’ve ever been given that you’d like to share? Can be life or work related.
They’re all cliches but still true: seize the day & remember everything is going to be alright. Seize opportunities. Try things out & don’t be afraid of failing. Be kind to yourself, you don’t have to be perfect. And accept that you’re going to make mistakes, every single day, and you’re probably going to get away with making many (so far so good anyway)! Believe, trust and have faith in yourself, if you don’t others aren’t going to either.
*Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the interviewee alone and not their employer.
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